Fitchburg DPW seeks $37G to continue oil-spill cleanup

FITCHBURG -- Larry Casassa is asking the City Council for $37,000 in available funds to maintain oil-absorbent booms in the Nashua River.

According to Casassa, business manager for the Department of Public Works, the state Department of Environmental Protection will soon turn full responsibility of the Central Steam Plant oil-spill cleanup back over to the city. He said the DEP will stop tending to the booms sometime within the next couple of weeks, though he has not been given a specific date.

The $37,000 he is requesting will cover replacement of the oil-soaked booms about every three weeks for 30 weeks, as well as disposal and labor, he said.

The DEP initially responded and took control of the June oil spill, which was caused by vandalism at the abandoned plant, because the city did not have the resources to address it at the time and because it posed a threat to the Nashua River, Casassa said.

Now, the agency feels the immediate emergency has passed, and the city must take over, he said.

The federal Environmental Protection Agency was also involved for a period, handling exploratory excavation in an attempt to find the source of the oil. The agency drilled a recovery well close to a pipe it felt might be the source as a means to capture any additional oil that may leak out, Casassa said, and that well has remained relatively clear.

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DPW Commissioner Lenny Laakso said very little, if any, oil is still seeping into the river, but the precaution of keeping the booms in place is necessary.

"As the level of leaking has subsided, the frequency in which they have to change those booms has gone way down," Casassa said. "We think that we've got it pretty much contained at this point, but until we identify the source and eliminate it entirely, we can't be certain that there won't be additional oil released at some point in the future."

He said the $37,000 figure is an estimate based on the expenses the DEP faced in the cleanup, and he hopes funding to tear down the building -- as well as cut off all of the potential sources of oil that could get into the river -- will be obtained before that 30 weeks is up.

Casassa is awaiting final word on a $500,000 grant he applied for through MassDevelopment to raze the oft-vandalized plant, which used to power the city's paper mills. He said the city has received some positive indications but no official commitment to the project just yet, because grant applications are still being reviewed.

Casassa said the trickiest part of the cleanup, once funding is secured, will not so much be the oil but the extensive asbestos abatement that will be necessary.

"It's a lengthy process, and that's why we want to get it started as soon as we can," he said.

One of the conditions of the grant, if awarded to the city, is that the site would be fully cleaned so that it may be ready for potential future development, Casassa said.

He said the city still faces the potential demand of either or both the DEP and the EPA to reimburse them for their costs, but he has not received any official word on the matter.

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